The Room Beyond the Veil
by YoukoRei
Summary: The consciousness of one who has slipped past the veil.


**Title:** The Room Beyond the Veil

**Author:** YoukoRei (Chrissy Taylor)

**Timeline:** Also after the unmentionable event in OoTP…

**Summary:**  The consciousness of one who has slipped past the veil.

**Warnings:**  If you haven't read the fifth book, turn back.  If you haven't come to grips with what happened in OoTP, you might not want to read this either.

**Author's Note:**  It's a little disjointed, but with reason.  This is all Sirius.

**Disclaimer:**  JKR owns Harry Potter, et al.  I just write about it.

**C&C:** Always Appreciate

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Lost. 

It is an odd sea of emotions, of thoughts. Lifted off the ground, floating through the thickness of the air.

Nothing makes sense. I have gone through the door into another reality, another state of being. 

I cannot find my way out. I don't know which way is up. I am confused by the physics of this world.

The dynamics do not appeal to me. 

Through the door, I can see the sun is setting blindly down behind the hill.  I stare at it through half-drawn curtains. The wind blows fatalistic patterns through the tall, uneven patches of grass that comfort the tired sun.

My eyes grow accustomed to the darkness even before I have a chance to register the change. I don't recall wanting to adjust, but when darkness is all you are surrounded by, your body can do nothing but compensate for you. Compensate and hope you'll realize the sun is setting far too quickly to keep up.

A slight tilt of my head, an inclination to view my surroundings. The darkness has swallowed most of the colors that I remember being here, and the boundaries I once held as definite now blur and mingle with each other. There is no defining line between the book and the bookshelf, between the pillow and the bed. Everything slowly becomes as one.

Again, my eyes beg me to move away from the ever-blinding light coming from the doorway through which I have passed. Yet, I stay, complacent in the engulfing solitude that the retreating sun offers. 

I am learning little by little that what I do here seems to be of little consequence. Should I refuse to move, the sun will still continue to set. The darkness will continue to invade from the corners of my room. Life past the door goes on.

So I sit. I marvel at the movement of the world around me. It continues without my participation. What makes this one individual so vital to the universe? The laws of nature seem to give me no answers. Not the one's I wanted to find, anyway.

Who knew this morning that the wind was going to be bitter and biting? Who predicted that the sky would frown down upon all of us with its gray countenance full of anger and disapproval?

A sudden shift in the atmosphere draws me from my contemplation. Fingers move deftly across darkened faces, searching for the appropriate ambiance. This will never do: dark must accompany dark. A quick shift of movement, a flick of an open case, and the mood is restored. 

A pause, a slight break in concentration. Thoughts begin to wander. Without a tight reign, they will run rampant through the fields of my nighttime. I hesitate to venture there before I have to.

So, what becomes of me now? The faces of a few vague figures leer down at me from their higher positions, condescension in each and every stitch. What do they know of life except that the sun brings light and meaning? What can they expect to experience once that sun has slipped below the horizon but darkness, a ceasing to exist?

Even now, the ramblings of an empty mind prove to be nothing. Without someone to read them, they whither away and die in silence. Without an ear, the voice is lost. The speaker is alone.

The desire to disappear is growing. The desire to become someone else is intriguing. Slipping into another place, somewhere warmer and more appealing than my current location.  Who could resist that now?

I stand and find myself in front of a different door. This must be the portal through which the shadows travel. The inside is a complete mystery; not even the pale light scattering through the curtain penetrates its depths. There must be a new persona in here somewhere.

A shrug and a half-turn finds me face-to-face with an old mirror. Reflected in its perfect surface is... nothing. The sun has finished its descent, and I can no longer make out where the mirror ends and I begin. I could try to touch the cold glass, but I fear that I would fall through into the darkness much like Alice.

Who would sit in the darkness contemplating the angst of this pre-existing condition? Who would smile and pretend to fit into the outfits that seem just a bit to constraining for the reality of this vision? Who would be there to watch the backs of every one he ever knew move farther over that hill into the violet sighs of the lingering light outside the veiled door? 

And yet, maybe I've already fallen through. After all, these dynamics just don't make sense.

_~fin~_


End file.
